I'll comment below in color and bold.

 

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>-----Original Message-----

>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:futurework-

>[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Christoph Reuss

>Sent: Thursday, May 11, 2006 3:04 PM

>To: [email protected]

>Subject: RE: [Futurework] "Political economy" vs "economics and politics"

> 

>Harry Pollard wrote in reply to Brad:

>> We should remember that production takes place only because of

>> Wages - the return to Labor.

> 

>You mean only paid work gets done?  Who is paying you to write on FW?

>McD?  Now you gave it away...

 

In Classical Political Economy "Labor" is the word given to exertion used in the production of Wealth.

 

"Wealth" is a material product produced for the satisfaction of human desires and having exchange value.

 

So, I know exactly what I’m talking about. Others who use exact speech also know what I am talking about. Unfortunately, outside the rigor of carefully defined concepts, this isn’t true.

 

When, for example, a dozen people are talking about Wages it is likely they enjoy (or suffer) a dozen different meanings.

 

This is perhaps why discussion so often ends in confusion and sometimes anger.

> 

>> I should mention that Labor includes the manager and the CEO.

>> They are engaged in production together with the woman on the

>> production line. A major triumph of the people who run society

>> (helped by people like Marx and a legion of neo-Classical

>> scholars) was to separate the "bosses and bossed" into warring

>> camps, thereby obscuring the real movers and shakers.

> 

>True, Marx offered a red herring (literally).  The real warring camps

>are producers vs. predators.  Unfortunately managers and CEOs tend to

>be predators these days.  It could be different.

 

I would like to know exactly what you mean by “predators”.

 

>> So, modern left-wingers who should know better concentrate on

>> such non-issues as urban poverty and lack of health care,

>> inequality between wage-earners and the CEOs, affordable housing,

>> educational funding, and a dozen more. Bush, and the Republican

>> Party are usually blamed for these deficiencies, yet all of them

>> existed long before Bush, or the GOP. In fact they existed a

>> century ago, and two centuries ago in Europe.

> 

>Right, Bush wants to roll back the social progress of 2 centuries.

> 

> 

>> Less so in North America two centuries ago - you'll recall that

>> de Tocqueville was amazed at the absence of beggars is America.

> 

>Did they shoot them (like the Injuns) or let them starve?

 

Neither – they just weren’t there. If I could make a suggestion, perhaps you should think about things rather then dreaming up cute remarks which get to be more tiresome than cute. You can do better.

 

>> You should not have mentioned your last point about monetizing

>> everything - including your breath. This is the sort of thing

>> that the controlled economy is very good at doing. (The free

>> market would laugh at such nonsense.)

> 

>Do you know how the mafia deals with air pollution and toxic waste?

>Mafia (black market) is free trade, in your own words.  And in Brussels >too.

 

When people supply things that other people want but the government prevents them from having, entrepreneurs ‘illegally’ satisfy their needs. Others, who I’m sure you would call ‘predators’, then bribe the government to stop this competition which is then labeled the black market. You apparently are adopting the ‘predators’ terminology.

 

>> The danger is that should government economists read what you

>> say, they might decide to try it.

> 

>They're already on their way, without Brad tipping them off.

>Currently they're busy privatizing water.  I guess air will be next.

 

Air is a resource we own in common. If you could carry that thought a little further to embrace land and the oceans, you might improve your understanding.

 

>> I'll end with a de Tocqueville quote which I like.

>> 

>> "The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize

>> they can bribe the people with their own money."

> 

>Operation "Enduring Freedom" was an Orwellian typo.  It should

>have read "Ending ur Freedom".

> 

>Chris

> 

> 

> 

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